


The Scroll-Case

by Carmarthen



Category: Frontier Wolf - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Canon Era, Crack, Humor, M/M, Masturbation, Pining, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 00:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5519309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/pseuds/Carmarthen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whatever is on that scroll Hilarion is passing around the numerus in Belgica, it's starting fights, and Alexios means to put a stop to it. [On the upper end of T for sexuality, but I didn't feel like it was explicit enough to warrant an M rating.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scroll-Case

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amyfortuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyfortuna/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! I'm very rusty on writing Sutcliff fic and I ran out of time for the actual porn, but I hope this entertains.

“They say the grain shipment will be delayed another week.” Alexios frowned again at the message he held, as if by sheer force of will he could rearrange the letters into something more favorable, although that had not worked the first time. “I suppose we can tighten the rations, but there’s already been enough infighting this winter….”

“Perhaps you had best write to the garrison up in Augusta Treverorum,” said Hilarion, just as the other ducenarius, Sextus, came ducking through Hilarion’s door curtain. “They ought to have reserves.”

“Hilarion, I was wondering if—” Sextus broke off when he saw Alexios, coming to clumsy attention. “Sir! I didn’t realize you were here.”

“Stand easy, soldier,” Alexios murmured, waving a hand. “I only came to bring the ducenarius a message; we were very nearly done, so you may carry on.”

“Sir.” Sextus still looked as if he would rather his praepositus were not there at all. “Hilarion, that—er—you know—I was wondering if—that scroll—” he stammered with uncharacteristic nervousness, a dull flush beginning to rise in his cheeks.

“Of course.” Hilarion lounged to his feet. “Sir, if you will excuse me a moment—”

Alexios nodded, and Hilarion went over to his clothes-chest and rummaged about in it for a moment, finally retrieving a scroll-case. He handed it to Sextus as if it were made of solid gold, although it did not look like anything special to Alexios. “You must be quite careful with it,” said Hilarion, “for I do not think I could replace it, not out here, and you must return it to me before the Ides.”

“I will, assuredly,” said Sextus, with another sidelong, nearly embarrassed glance at Alexios. “My thanks, Hilarion.” He nearly tripped in his haste to leave, and when Alexios shot Hilarion a curious glance, Hilarion only shrugged.

“I am certain this matter will be sorted out quickly enough, sir.” Hilarion gestured again at the message in Alexios’s hand as if they had never been interrupted.

* * *

Alexios would have thought nothing more of the mysterious exchange between Sextus and Hilarion, had not similar exchanges continued to occur. None of the others were quite so overt, but he often rounded a corner to find Hilarion murmuring with one of the centenarii, or with the fort’s medic or another officer, and then a scroll-case would quietly exchange hands.

Matters came to a head one day in the mess when Alexios heard shouting and looked up to find Centenarius Segolatus and one of the optiones circling each other like boxers, taking the occasional wild swing at each other. Had the cook forgotten to water the wine tonight?

“Soldiers!” he shouted, pitching his voice to carry through the din, but by the time he reached them, Segolatus was already sitting on the floor, clutching his jaw and moaning. The remains of at least one plate lay scattered on the floor. “ _Soldiers!_ ”

“It was my turn, sir!” the optio slurred, clearly well into his cups, and Alexios glanced at the nearby table with a sinking feeling, already half-expecting what he saw: a too-familiar battered scroll-case. He picked it up, weighing it in his hand, and for a moment wished to clout both soldiers about the head with it, regardless of how that might irritate Hilarion. This whole ridiculous affair was Hilarion’s fault in the first place; he _ought_ to be irritated.

But it would not do for discipline, as satisfying as it might be.

“Latrine duty for both of you, until you remember that you are officers of Rome and not some emperor’s hard bargain,” he said coldly, and then, “Ducenarius Hilarion, _with me._ ” He turned on his heel and stalked out of the mess without watching to see if Hilarion would follow.

Alexios saw to his displeasure once they were out in the corridor that Hilarion did not look particularly nervous, as an officer ought to when his commander was as unamused as Alexios felt at present. It had been difficult enough to turn the Attacotti into a half-passable fighting unit, and teach them to respect their Roman officers, without those same officers brawling like children in front of them. Hilarion knew this perfectly well, and yet he bore only his usual air of lazy, half-mocking amusement.

“What,” said Alexios, holding up the scroll before Hilarion’s half-lidded gaze, “exactly, is this?”

“Oh, I am not certain you would really like to know,” Hilarion drawled, the faintest hint of a smirk playing about the corners of his mouth. “Sir.”

“I have ignored you whispering in corners and passing it about for a month now,” said Alexios with a coolness he did not feel, “and it is responsible for two of my officers being publicly reprimanded in front of the Attacotti. You know it will make discipline more difficult. Now, you may tell me what it is or I shall find out for myself.”

Alexios was trembling, his knuckles white on the hand clenched around the damned scroll-case; and he felt a little blindsided by the degree of his anger. 

He felt, if he were quite honest, rather betrayed. He had come to rely on Hilarion more than any of the other officers; Hilarion alone of them was also a Frontier Wolf, a man whose shield-shoulder Alexios had—and still did—rely upon. And because of that he had let Hilarion’s jokes and pranks go unremarked, even when perhaps he should not have done so.

Well, no more. “Which is it to be, Ducenarius?”

“You are quite welcome to find out for yourself if you like, sir.” Hilarion leaned back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, lips twitching.

Frowning, Alexios opened the case and tilted the scroll out.

At first he thought he might be holding it upside-down, so he turned it the other way. Then sideways. There were drawings, numbered in small neat letters. The kinds of drawings one might see in a brothel or bathhouse, perhaps in a very cheap tavern, except that the artist was rather better than average.

“Is that one even possible?” Alexios heard himself ask, pointing to number seven.

“Oh, quite.” 

“And that one?”

Hilarion shook his head, suppressing a smile. “No, I tried that one and it simply doesn’t work unless you can bend your hips backwards.”

Alexios blinked at the drawing, his face heating. It was of a man and a remarkably flexible youth, and Hilarion had just implied—

“Joking, sir.” When Alexios looked up again, Hilarion wore his most bland expression.

“Right.” Of course he was. Alexios’s face still felt hot, which was ridiculous; he was not a virgin, and of course he had seen such things before—although not, it had to be said, under the amused, sardonic gaze of his ducenarius, which it turned out made all the difference in the world. He cleared his throat. “Well, there won’t be any more fights over it. I shall keep it in my quarters until tempers have cooled off, and I should count it a personal favor if nothing like this happens again.”

“Of course.” Hilarion, curse him, still looked as if this were the greatest jest in the world. 

Alexios found when he returned to his quarters that he had clutched the scroll-case so hard it had imprinted in his palm.

* * *

Alexios did not mean to take the scroll out and look at it; he meant only to leave it tucked away in his clothes-chest long enough for the bickering to blow over, and then return it to Hilarion, with an admonition _not_ to loan it out in the future.

But he found that evening as he sat in front of his counting board and stared at yet another inventory list that did not quite add up, that the memory of those drawings he had seen in the corridor was burned into his mind, so that he could see them clearly if he but closed his eyes. The inventory, when he looked at it again, seemed like so much nonsense.

Well, there was no harm in looking at it, if he could not concentrate. He would look at it and then put it out of his mind.

Alexios fetched the scroll and stretched out on his narrow cot, the lamp beside it casting a warm flickering glow over the bare walls and the striped native rug spread over the cot.

He had looked through nearly half of the scroll with alternate bemusement—people _did_ such things?—and amusement, eyebrows raised. He did not find the scroll particularly arousing; he could not see how the mere loan of it could drive men to blows. They were after all only drawings, the little figures of men and women and youths too small to even see their features, their _other_ attributes exaggerated to the point of humor.

And then he remembered that this was _Hilarion’s_ scroll, and unbidden, his mind conjured up an image of himself and Hilarion in the place of the figures in number three. It was one of the tamer images, the man standing behind the youth with an arm around his chest, his cock pressed between the youth’s strong thighs, but the thought sent a frisson of hot desire through Alexios that brought the blood to his cheeks. He was not even entirely sure which way he imagined it, although he knew he ought to care. And yet the mere thought of Hilarion’s skin against his, Hilarion’s mocking mouth softening under his own, Hilarion’s hands—hands he knew well could be gentle and tender—stirred his blood more than any of the handful of camp-followers he had bedded at the urging of his fellows ever had.

It was wrong, he knew, to dishonor their friendship by desiring Hilarion so, and he had no wish to be one of those commanders who misused their power over the men placed under them. But even as he thought this he pushed his braccae down to his knees and rucked up his tunic and wrapped his hand around his prick, closing his eyes. He did not quite know what to imagine; the images from the scroll all mingled in his mind’s eyes, a chaos of tangled limbs, and mixed with the memory of Hilarion’s pale, freckled hand on his arm the other day, when Hilarion had touched him to direct his attention to something.

It hardly took any time at all before he had spent all over his hand and belly, his back arching and limbs shaking with the intensity of it. He lay there for a moment, little shocks and ripples of pleasure still running all through him, trying not to think too hard.

How would he meet Hilarion’s eyes now? If Hilarion ever guessed—oh, let him not guess—Alexios would be lucky if all he did was mock.

* * *

Alexios looked at the scroll that month more often than he liked to admit, even to himself, and he had begun to look at Hilarion, too, which was worse. He found his eye caught by the flex of muscles in Hilarion’s forearms as he leaned on Alexios’ desk to look at the grain shipment reports; by the glint of sunlight off his sandy hair in the practice yards; by how his pale eyes grew heavy-lidded and languid when he was engaged in thoroughly fleecing one of the other officers at dice.

He wore that same expression now as he leaned up against the wall of his quarters, regarding Alexios through lowered lashes, as he said silky-smooth and mocking, “And what did you think of it, Commander? Have you a favorite?”

It was intolerable; and Alexios found that what he most wanted to do was kiss Hilarion until he stopped talking, but of course that was impossible.

“I quite like number five, sir,” Hilarion continued. Alexios could not remember which one was number five; perhaps it was the one with the red-haired fellow and the two very enthusiastic women...unless that was number six.

Alexios squared his shoulders and tried to keep his face blank as he thrust the scroll-case into Hilarion’s hand. “Remember what I said.”

Hilarion gave an exaggerated sigh and slouched even further against the wall, the scroll-case dangling from one hand. Sometimes Alexios was not entirely sure how he managed to stay upright at all. No wonder Hilarion could manage number seven, he thought, and immediately felt that intolerable blush return.

“Of course, I will not loan it to anyone—although of course if _you_ should wish to borrow it again—” Hilarion broke off, raising one eyebrow.

“Number three,” he said quickly, not meeting Hilarion’s eyes, and turned to go, only to be stopped by the warmth of Hilarion’s hand on his wrist.

“Alexios—” For once Hilarion’s face was naked of laughter. He swallowed visibly, then licked his lips. Alexios found himself standing as if rooted to the ground, unable to look away from Hilarion’s mouth. “That is—also one of my favorites, with the right person.” 

His voice was very quiet and the look in his pale eyes looked like fear, and Alexios thought again of kissing him, this time to take away that fear. And then he did not think.

He stepped forward, not resisting Hilarion’s loose grasp on his wrist; Hilarion did not step away. Then Alexios reached up and cupped the back of Hilarion’s neck, where his hair was cropped short and soft.

It was, Alexios, thought when they had parted again, quite unlike any kiss he had ever had before. 

“Alexios.” Hilarion’s eyes had gone sleepy. “What—what should we do? What do you want to do?”

The answer slipped from Alexios’ tongue as if he had known it for years. “Everything.”

Hilarion laughed, a little breathlessly, and reached up to trace a thumb over Alexios’s mouth; some of the nervous tension had gone out of his frame. “I think that may take more than one night, but I shall do my best.”


End file.
